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I like both names, although it's taken me a long time to come around to Irene. I've always loved Sylvia, but Irene was a different story. I'm of the generation that can remember the middle-aged and old ladies who were named Irene, and only middle-aged and old ladies were named Irene, so I'm sure that colored my perception. I have an aunt-by-marriage named Irene. She must be in her eighties now. She was always a nice lady and all, but she had dentures and they must have been ill-fitting because she always used to move them around in her mouth. I can remember as a kid staring at her, fascinated in a kind of morbid way, because her dentures were moving around in her mouth. She must have had dentures at a fairly young age because when I was a kid less than ten years old, she couldn't have been out of her thirties yet.

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Irene always made me think of Aunt Irene and it's only recently I've begun to see some beauty to the name.

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But what if you have only one girl? Circumstances might dictate that you can have only a Sylvia and only an Irene. Which would you choose first?

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Jerome has got to go.